tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post7440302799562349288..comments2024-03-28T16:31:27.365+00:00Comments on call me ishmael: THE FAKE FAKE NEWS NEWScall me ishmaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comBlogger80125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-38782748299432304272017-03-17T18:36:42.510+00:002017-03-17T18:36:42.510+00:00It's all kicking off like crazy out here Mr I....It's all kicking off like crazy out here Mr I.<br />We need your razor-sharp take on all the shenanigans.<br />And today Georgie-boy has parked his Bullingdon bum in the Editor's chair at the sub-Standard. Surely you can't let that pass?<br />Sam Keithnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-19812695960317182962017-03-16T22:29:17.786+00:002017-03-16T22:29:17.786+00:00If Brexit happens, the SNP fox is shot.If Brexit happens, the SNP fox is shot.mongoosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-80117346721342122072017-03-15T10:39:06.530+00:002017-03-15T10:39:06.530+00:00Fingers crossed that a second referendum and failu...Fingers crossed that a second referendum and failure again will see the demise of the SNPDoug Shouldersnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-12982786998327301492017-03-15T03:35:58.746+00:002017-03-15T03:35:58.746+00:00Oh good, another Referendum. The move to Perthshir...Oh good, another Referendum. The move to Perthshire is off again. mrs narcoleptnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-38894661115891852082017-03-09T23:18:32.233+00:002017-03-09T23:18:32.233+00:00This comment has been removed by the author.Dick the Prickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02683095612320513712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-35252071656160554522017-03-05T23:35:10.041+00:002017-03-05T23:35:10.041+00:00Mr inmate: the only way Trump will send Blair to ...Mr inmate: the only way Trump will send Blair to the ME is strapped to a rocket (a la Strangelove).Mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-954859072733924462017-03-05T21:59:33.864+00:002017-03-05T21:59:33.864+00:00And the diabolical Blair is lobbying for a few ext...And the diabolical Blair is lobbying for a few extra millions,he wishes to be Trumpers' Middle East Peace envoy. That'll be more sandpeople turned to glass then.<br />Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.inmatenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-69074554543037047372017-03-04T18:44:33.178+00:002017-03-04T18:44:33.178+00:00Or see this one about the abilities of dogs - whic...Or see this one about the abilities of dogs - which turn out to be brighter than some great apes. <br /><br />topdocumentaryfilms.com/secret-life-dog<br /><br />Looks like you were right about dogblokes. Woman on a Rafthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08897415591130901416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-71956813278730925212017-03-04T00:48:25.630+00:002017-03-04T00:48:25.630+00:00I gather the new (today) Stabat Mater by James Mac...I gather the new (today) Stabat Mater by James MacMillan is worth the effort, Mr I - The Sixteen are obliging. Especially if you're feeling jaded, this might be lovely. Magnificent, Macmilllan, in his contempt for most contemporary bollocks though he believes fervently, as some of us cannot. <br /><br />If you're in retreat, then try also the new Goldberg Variations by Beatrice Rana, just out and incredible. There is nothing that can be said, 24 she is, about the same age as Glenn's first visit. His 1981 version is one of the great death works, of course. This young woman fills me, absurdly, with some sort of joy.Bungalow Billnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-84838643093434401772017-03-02T11:16:42.524+00:002017-03-02T11:16:42.524+00:00Maybe someone nudged him on the arm one day and wh...Maybe someone nudged him on the arm one day and whispered "Maxwell".<br />A fine gesture to be sure...give that man a medal or an OBE or something.Doug Shouldersnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-60169148724982527462017-03-02T01:38:44.439+00:002017-03-02T01:38:44.439+00:00I would also like to add Melvyn Bragg to the gallo...I would also like to add Melvyn Bragg to the gallows list, please. If it has not already gone to the printers.<br /><br />In other news, Phillip Green has "voluntarily" stumped up a whole third of a fucking billion pounds towards that pension embarrassment. Now call me crazy, but who has 1/3rd of a billion in the (corporate) bedside draw? So it is yet more electric money, from somewhere, to somewhere, sometime, maybe. I bet the bastard actually makes money on the deal. Is everyone asleep?mongoosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-6623782607691223162017-02-26T17:59:41.336+00:002017-02-26T17:59:41.336+00:00Hope all is well with you and the carpentry Mr I. ...Hope all is well with you and the carpentry Mr I. I came across this vignette and you sprang to mind given your longstanding coverage of this issue:<br /><br />http://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/katie-hopkins/katie-hopkins-madeleine-mccann/<br /><br />I suspect that Katie ain't exactly your 'cup of tea' but interesting that she should pick this up in the MSM in way she does (rather more circumspect than usual I would say - I reckon she will have, wisely, taken advice on how far to go with this without attracting litigious attention). Very risky area to probe even under cover of a 'nom de plum,' as with your good self, of which I am sure you are only too well aware. I wonder what Katie would say in private? SGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-63386597346226094562017-02-26T09:58:34.269+00:002017-02-26T09:58:34.269+00:00As I cautioned, Stoke Central was unable to get pa...As I cautioned, Stoke Central was unable to get past its distrust of Liverpuddlians.<br /><br />The media dwellers are busy saying that Labour won it by listening to the people. Oh do leave orf, Labour has never listened to them - certainly not in Stoke. <br /><br />Putting the new UKIP leader up may have seemed like a good idea but they'd have stood more chance if they had picked a local candidate. Nuttall moving in to comply with election law was always going to annoy them. UKIP were gulled by the media in to making it a test of the party rather than accepting that for reasons based on FPTP, the leader representing a body of opinion about 5m strong might have to wait for a seat to come up, and instead concentrate on winning the seat for a candidate who could take it. Woman on a Rafthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08897415591130901416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-19701037578072008942017-02-22T01:01:25.408+00:002017-02-22T01:01:25.408+00:00Dangerous times, I reckon. The two sides in the US...Dangerous times, I reckon. The two sides in the US usually pull together behind their flag. There being but a couple of fag-papers between the two main parties, you can undersstand it. Not this time. The left and the media are going to take down everybody they can. Yon gay Milo gone today. El Trumpo should think on and play above the game above the fray with his artless trap firmly shut. Pick five important things to do and do them. A proper energy policy, slash government idiocy, manage the EU's death throes, hang the bankers and get the last decade's other misdoers into jail. That should be enough for any man.<br /><br />Russian, the US and China inhabit almost different worlds, mr mike, and as long as that continues all will be well. The country that should worry is the young one with all the straight lines on its map. But the by the way islamo-madness is going to get out of hand if they don't watch out. Perhaps with awful slaughter in the nearer east. Poor people as ever paying the blood bill. <br /><br />Where is our host? Playing hooky again. Off nailing shit together with his fuck-off mail-gun perhaps. I do hope so.mongoosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-37786482560352038072017-02-20T04:28:56.834+00:002017-02-20T04:28:56.834+00:00Mr mongoose: Russia is one of the few white Chris...Mr mongoose: Russia is one of the few white Christian countries remaining. Should be a natural ally, but let us put that to one side for a moment.<br /><br />The ol' US of A is constantly looking for wars to assert its hegemony. The septics haven't figured it out yet, but at some point soon they will have to choose between Russia or China as allies. Because they cannot win against Russia+China. Actually, I don't think they could defeat either Russia OR China. If I were China, I would wait for the Yanks to wear themselves out against the Ruskies, then step in. The same gambit works for the Ruskies.Mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-27717834779885897502017-02-20T01:31:17.432+00:002017-02-20T01:31:17.432+00:00A question for us: why is Russia all at once the e...A question for us: why is Russia all at once the enemy? <br /><br />It becomes more like '1984' every day.mongoosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-80849498060005962512017-02-18T01:13:51.066+00:002017-02-18T01:13:51.066+00:00Mrs WoaR: Imagine how they handled those masts an...Mrs WoaR: Imagine how they handled those masts and spars when those ships were first built. A few fingers would have been lost, I imagine.<br /><br />On a similar vain, I recently climbed over the Sydney harbour bridge - Its highly regulated, proper gear issued, and wired on in safety harnesses, but still bloody high up there on a narrow walkway in blustery wind. Quite eye watering old black & white photos of the workers and stories of when it was originally built. Recommended for anyone travelling Down Under.Mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-49747066079199388722017-02-18T00:00:24.162+00:002017-02-18T00:00:24.162+00:00I have a cubic inch of wood (or thereabouts) which...I have a cubic inch of wood (or thereabouts) which the museum assures me is from the Discovery. They cut up the old bits which have to be replaced and sell them to finance the refurbishment. It does smell like it remembers being a forest which went round the world. OTOH, it could be an old fishbox and I would probably not know the difference. <br /><br />I watched the mast being taken down and sent off to the rigging yard. I fancy that the crew appreciated an audience; the gaffer made a point of coming to me and explaining what was going on. Why don't they have groups of students gawking at them?<br /><br />It was in the rain, which made it dangerous, but they still had to move long, heavy beams from the vertical to the horizontal and anchor them down safely for transport. It is slithery and great weights are swung around by the crane driver, under advice from radio but it was the man waving which seemed to be giving the main instructions. Huge chains and hooks were swinging in the air, guided by men catching hold of guide ropes without fouling them or being injured - or putting them through the nearby plate glass windows. It was giant surgery in a confined space. Woman on a Rafthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08897415591130901416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-73784389829717711082017-02-17T13:44:21.067+00:002017-02-17T13:44:21.067+00:00Thanks, Mr Mike, yes, I had an adventure once burn...Thanks, Mr Mike, yes, I had an adventure once burning some foot long end bits of sleepers. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Most of the pallets were use-once plain-and-crap softwood from Buildbase. The red one is pretty though. And it looks as if Donald Trump went out one morning with a saw and a splitter - in his lumberjack shirt, doubtless - and won it from the virgin forest. mongoosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-36884678235135096662017-02-17T08:49:46.452+00:002017-02-17T08:49:46.452+00:00I never imagined the day I’d be walking the shore ...I never imagined the day I’d be walking the shore collecting driftwood for kindling, but will do as soon as the stuff in the coal shed runs out. It’s nice for burning smooth and bleached.<br />Sawed up a couple of pallets the other day into lengths of exactly two inches too long. Makes a bit of a mess of the hearth when the end bit falls off.<br /><br />In a factory where I used to work we got the engines delivered from Japan contained in mahogany crates. One of the blokes that worked on the assembly line would use the wood to make grandmother clocks and other small items of furniture.<br />Doug Shouldersnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-46286094777002995762017-02-17T03:57:46.012+00:002017-02-17T03:57:46.012+00:00Be careful with those pallets, Mr mongoose. I onc...Be careful with those pallets, Mr mongoose. I once burned some railway sleepers and nearly gassed myself.<br /><br />That wood is treated with noxious chemicals. Mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-1463603457872390102017-02-16T20:03:23.913+00:002017-02-16T20:03:23.913+00:00A few weeks ago a bloke offered "some pallets...A few weeks ago a bloke offered "some pallets" to burn on the fire and so I accepted. The best part of a bloody hundred turned up. It was a week's work to cut them up and turn them into foot-long bricks for burning but we managed it. Though I've kindling left that'll do for a decade. One of these could barely be lifted off the ground and is some redwood with heiroglyphs stamped on it, rough-sawn one way and split the other it seemed to be. I have harvested the bugger and it sits drying, an inch-and-a-half thick most of it and looking at me. Maybe it's a base for that coffee table top - the one the old man died of before getting it finished.mongoosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-83431540715778755312017-02-16T16:07:33.690+00:002017-02-16T16:07:33.690+00:00I was just being wry, mr doug; I have been filling...I was just being wry, mr doug; I have been filling and sanding, cramping and screwing all day, today, bits of wood which I made look old a decade ago, and now they are old, going around again; some new stuff I bought yesterday, kiln-dried, will have to be braced with strips of oak at each end, as it's curling up like a banana. I dunno how people do this stuff with the radio on, it takes me all my time and thought, and I still fuck up, new wood warps and shrinks and the few really good old boards which I own, well, I hate to use them even though some shitbrain fuckwit bastard'll burn them, one day. I cut into some pitch pine, the other day, over two hundred years old, and the smell, the spirit of the forest, filled the room. They never taught me about that at school, about the Creation.callmeishmaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-56562879805847187552017-02-15T12:17:13.528+00:002017-02-15T12:17:13.528+00:00I wouldn’t be too down on nailing boards to a wall...I wouldn’t be too down on nailing boards to a wall. I’d rather be doing that (Again) than any sit down job.<br />Better way to make a living than coming out of “Uni” with a half arsed degree in baking science or some such shit.<br />I happened upon a rerun of Bullesye the other day. Untidy looking bloke in a checked shirt and jeans job was Humanities. Just barely perceptible flinch from Bowen.<br />I was praying for him to say..Now for ten pounds Bill…for ten pounds…What the flying fuck is humanities?<br />Doug Shouldersnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-13587598440125748552017-02-14T14:40:19.722+00:002017-02-14T14:40:19.722+00:00mrs ishmael's grandson is a Lego whiz, he just...mrs ishmael's grandson is a Lego whiz, he just takes it out of the box and assembles it, Ah so desu ka, like it was written in his soul. Taking him South, a while ago, I bought some blue suede shoes, not for him, for me, but I taught him the song, in the car, and he learnt it, melody, lyrics, timing, all just like that, just like ringing a bell. I have managed to persuade his mother to enrol him in a choir and he loves it. A good thing because he struggles with school learning, he learns quickly in one-to-ones with mrs ishmael and I when he's here but that's only once or twice a year and the schools can't do that, even if the teachers were capable. By osmosis, in board games, he has learned to say Do you have? instead of Have you got? A tiny victory for my primary school teacher, Miss Boulter, down all these years, such an ugly word, got, ishmael, she used to say, find an alternative. She'd go fucking apeshit watching the House of Commons, with their Gots and <br />Reasons Why and Hopefullys and the Government Ares.<br />My late brother had an aching, almost courtly politeness which his sons now - unknowingly - deploy although they would deny his influence in any such thing and if little Jack should choose his words more carefully than do his peers - probably the waiting room wretched whom you describe - then he will never know the true author of his consideration, my dear old, frightening old, thoughtful old primary school teacher.<br /><br />As well as an irritating but useful curiosity about le mot propre, Miss Boulter gifted me the social lubricant which you mention, so necessary to negotiate the valves and pistons of NHS bureacracy, a contraption in which one false move could prove fatal.<br /><br />I have been trying to blog about my new nailer, a topic which I am sure you will relish, I must return to it, must do better, try harder, pass my 11-plus and go to King Edward's. And wind-up nailing boards to the fucking wall.callmeishmaelnoreply@blogger.com